Football Poets

The Ballad of Big, Bad Dermo

¶ 1 Leave a comment on verse 1 0 He was tall and he was moody, and magnificent and mean,
He was the toughest critter that the West had ever seen,
A voice like Bonnie Tyler’s and a chin encased in stubble,
When Dermo’s horse rode into town, you knew that there’d be trouble.

¶ 2 Leave a comment on verse 2 0 He’d ride into a one-horse town and tether up his horse,
His language was atrocious, it was blasphemous and coarse,
When he walked in the Grand Saloon, piano playing ceased,
And a kid would run and warn the undertaker and the priest.

¶ 3 Leave a comment on verse 3 0 He’d get the marshal’s star and he’d affix it to his chest,
Nobody dared to argue for they knew he was the best,
The cowboys quickly left the town beneath the noonday sun,
Afraid of reputation and the notches on his gun.

¶ 4 Leave a comment on verse 4 0 Dermo would size up the worth of every willing male,
Some he made his deputies and some he stuck in jail,
And some he woke up in the night and rode them out of town,
Whilst those who tried to challenge him, he brutally shot down.

¶ 5 Leave a comment on verse 5 0 From Shamrock in the east, he rode to Sligo in the west,
The townsfolk down in Longford all were mightily impressed,
He travelled through the borderlands, Dundalk and Donegal,
Equally as happy in a gunfight or a brawl.

¶ 6 Leave a comment on verse 6 0 Back down to lawless Athlone where his presence caused alarm,
And then we thought he’d settled for retirement on the Farm,
But Dermo wasn’t happy tending cattle, field and hedge,
He missed the taste of danger and the living on the edge.

¶ 7 Leave a comment on verse 7 0 He met with Dirty Ollie and they galloped on their horses,
Into the town of Tolka, where they summoned up their forces,
They made the people prosperous, and brought them wealth and fame,
Though people thought that Dermo had been too long at the game.

¶ 8 Leave a comment on verse 8 0 But when they woke one morning, bad ol’ Dermo wasn’t there,
He’d packed up his belongings and was heading for Kildare,
He built a little wooden shack and planned to till the earth,
And oversee the rising of a settlement from birth.

¶ 9 Leave a comment on verse 9 0 But after only fifteen months of scratching at the soil,
Dermo’s back grew weary of the unrelenting toil,
Last seen, his horse was heading for the dreary northern skies,
His soul is filled with restlessness, no matter how he tries.

¶ 10 Leave a comment on verse 10 0 And so he’ll keep on wandering from one town to the next,
A tortured soul with hollowed eyes and countenance so vexed,
Until one day he’ll meet his match, inevitably he must,
And the dogs will lick his body as it lies there in the dust.

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